Runescape subscription price increase & anti-bot battle success

If you play Runescape we have some good news and bad news for you today, the good news is that less bots should ruin the game for you now, the bad news is that subscription prices are going up very soon – that said, there is a way round this!

Let’s start by telling you a recent court case which the game’s developer, Jagex, was involved in. Jagex recently took bot developers Mark and Eric Snellman of Impulse Software to court due to the fact that they created macro and bot software which farmed gold, gained craft and increased XP without players needing to play the game, the company has now been ordered to pay Jagex damages and an injunction has been placed on Impulse to ensure that the company never extorts any future Jagex products. This should in-turn make the Runescape community a better place as it ensures that less people will progress in the MMORPG by utilizing such bots and macros.

The bad news isn’t awful, but we’re sure it won’t go down too well with some gamers. Jagex’s Vice President, David Clough, has revealed that RuneScape membership prices for new members will be going up from February 1st, 2012, however existing members won’t have to take any notice of the price jump long as they renew their memberships within 7 days of it expiring. Pricing before the change worked out to $5.95 / £3.50 / €5.95 per month, however this will now increase to $7.95 / £4.95 / €6.95 per month.

The price jump equates to roughly 33% which is a noticeable change but not extortionate if you ask us. Let’s not overlook the fact that loyal gamers aren’t being forced to pay a higher price thanks to the grace period, also if you have never played RuneScape you still have just shy of a week to start your membership and you’ll be eligible for the lower price.

You can see the press release which revealed this news here, Clough points out that last year RuneScape saw lots of great content updates and suggests that plans for 2012 are even more exciting – perhaps this is what the extra income from memberships will go towards!

Do you think the price increase is acceptable? Also what new improvements would you like to see brought to Runescape in 2012?